Last Updated on 2016-05-19 , 1:43 pm
Yesterday, an oil tank caught fire on Jurong Island, the man-made island which houses Singapore’s petrochemical industries and refineries, and was responsible for Singapore’s rise to be one of the top three oil refinery centres in the world.
The fire caught everyone by surprised, and started a huge fire-fighting effort by both the SCDF and the in-house company emergency response team (CERT).
If you have not read about this incident, here are 8 facts about the oil tank fire incident that took place in Jurong Island on 20 April 2016.
Which company owned the oil tank?
According to Channel NewsAsia, the tank is owned by the company, Jurong Aromatic Corp (JAC). JAC produces approximately 1.5 million tons of aromatics and 2.5 million tons of petroleum products per year.
When did the fire start?
It was reported that the oil tank caught fire just before 3pm at approximately 2:45 pm.
The exact situation on the ground
The fire was contained within a bund wall measuring 100m by 150m, and the tank has melted and folded due to the extreme temperature. The flames were visible even from the sea, but the fumes were not toxic.
SCDF deployed their large foam monitor which can shoot 22,700 litres of water per minute to mitigate the fire. In addition, ground water monitors and fixed drencher systems were used to cool down the nearby oil tanks.
Stormy and raining heavily
Staff on the island said that at the time of fire, it was raining heavily and there was a thunderstorm. Most people who heard the explosion dismissed it as lightning initially, but saw black smoke and flames rising into the sky.
“Leave if you don’t feel safe”
An unnamed staff stated that his project manager told them to leave the site if they felt unsafe. Orders for evacuation of the island were given an hour later.
SCDF alerted and deployed to help fight the fire
SCDF stated that they were alerted to the fire at 3 pm. The entire fire took almost 5 hours to be put out at 7:45 pm. They deployed around 150 firefighters and 38 vehicles to this operation.
Response of island’s CERT
When SCDF arrived on the scene, the island’s CERT were already fighting to contain the fire with ground water monitors.
Casualties
In the entire incident, it was reported that there was only one injury and no deaths–a CERT member was sent to the hospital due to heat exhaustion.
Watch the video posted by Channel NewsAsia below to view the fire incident.
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